Friedman Brain Institute

Scientific American - Drug Addiction May Make Users More Vulnerable to Stress

– January 30, 2012 ––

With 5.4 million of Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, a proven treatment or cure remains elusive. Researchers have developed a technology using stem cells to more accurately model what goes wrong in diseased brain cells of Alzheimer’s sufferers. Their findings will be published in this week’s Nature. Up to now, most studies have focused on patients with the familial form of Alzheimer’s disease, the type that is hereditary, which is much less common but easier to study than the sporadic form. But it is the sporadic, or non-hereditary form of the disease that accounts for 95 percent of cases. Dr. Sam Gandy, Mount Sinai Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research, says, “This approach is directly translatable to common forms of [Alzheimer's disease],” which is “extremely exciting stuff for scientists.”
- Dr. Sam Gandy, Professor, Neurology, Psychiatry, Associate Director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Learn more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/25/stem-cell-tech-may-aid-alzheimers-research/